Offered Without Comment 23

Caitlin Johnstone at her website on the subject of hero worship and false idols:

Pranksters mowing a giant penis on the grounds of an elite coronation party feels like the beginning of the end of something. People find the idea of a British king in 2023 absurd, and public opinion of the monarchy will only go down from here. Idols keep falling off their pedestals.

This sort of thing is happening everywhere; public figures once held in high esteem just keep losing face. The Catholic Church pedophile scandal kind of started it off. Twitter showed everyone that celebrities are just idiots with bad opinions. US presidents are ridiculous cartoons now, with the last one an incoherent buffoon and the current one a disintegrating dementia patient.

And it feels like it’s happening faster and faster. The Dalai Lama trying to tongue kiss that kid. Chomsky meeting with Epstein. Bernie Sanders falling all over himself to serve the establishment he once vocally decried. People just don’t get to keep their heroes anymore.

Living Among Refuse (re-redux)

Back to an old complaint on mine: living in a world so polluted that it’s impossible to assert that pristine, untouched (by human interventions) places exist anymore. Every bit of soil, water, and air is now affected by chemical alteration. degradation, and pollutants subtle and gross. Was intrigued to learn that despite despoliation, life finds a way (for now, anyway): a new marine ecosystem has formed in the middle of the ocean, normally devoid of much life, amongst the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (which goes by other names). Here’s the abstract from a scientific paper on the subject:

… the high seas are colonized by a diverse array of coastal species, which survive and reproduce in the open ocean, contributing strongly to its floating community composition. Analysis of rafting plastic debris in the eastern North Pacific Subtropical Gyre revealed 37 coastal invertebrate taxa, largely of Western Pacific origin, exceeding pelagic taxa richness by threefold. Coastal taxa, including diverse taxonomic groups and life history traits, occurred on 70.5% of debris items. Most coastal taxa possessed either direct development or asexual reproduction, possibly facilitating long-term persistence on rafts … results suggest that the historical lack of available substrate limited the colonization of the open ocean by coastal species, rather than physiological or ecological constraints as previously assumed. It appears that coastal species persist now in the open ocean as a substantial component of a neopelagic community sustained by the vast and expanding sea of plastic debris.

This news reminds me of flourishing ecosystems (significantly, absent humans) in Le Zone Rouge and the Chernobyl exclusion zone. To bright-siders, maybe these examples are glass-half-full observations, meaning take whatever good news presents itself and move on. Of course, I’m a glass-half-empty type, disgusted and dispirited by the very existence of all our floating refuse, which is expected to triple by 2060, largely from single-use plastics. (Readers are spared the indignity of stomach-churning pictures of trash floating in the ocean or beaches strewn with trash.) Everyone knows by now a good portion of human trash ends up in garbage gyres in all the major oceanic bodies. Yet transition to a better mode of packaging and consumption to avoid further wreckage appears nowhere on the horizon. Although each of us participates at some level (by virtue of being alive) in the cycle of extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal, I really blame industry for refusing steadfastly to adopt practices that don’t lead to obvious harms; I blame governments for not regulating industries that pollute wantonly; and I blame economists for failing to account for externalities such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch because, well, to do so would invalidate most business models.

So chalk another one up for the bad guys. A tiny thread of sliver silver lining pokes through an otherwise suffocating blanket of darkness.

Guides, Guards, and Fool-Proofing

Let’s say one has a sheet or sheaf of paper to cut. Lots of tools available for that purpose. The venerable scissors can do the job for small projects, though the cut line is unlikely to be very straight if that’s among the objectives. (Heard recently that blunt-nosed scissors for cutting construction paper are no longer used in kindergarten and the early grades, resulting in kids failing to develop the dexterity to manipulate that ubiquitous tool.) A simple razor blade (i.e., utility knife) drawn along a straightedge can cut 1–5 sheets at once but loses effectiveness at greater thicknesses. The machete-blade paper cutter found in copy centers cuts more pages at once but requires skill to use properly and safely. The device usually (but not always) includes an alignment guide for the paper and guard for the blade to discourage users from slicing fingers and hands. A super-heavy-duty paper cutter I learned to use for bookbinding could cut two reams of paper at a time and produced an excellent cut line. It had a giant clamp so that media (paper, card stock, etc.) didn’t shift during the cut (a common weakness of the machete blade) and required the operator to press buttons located at two corners of the standing machine (one at each hip) to prohibit anyone who became too complacent from being tempted to reach in and, as a result, slicing their fingers clean off. That idiot-proofing feature was undoubtedly developed after mishaps that could be attributed to either faulty design or user error depending on which side of the insurance claim one found oneself.

Fool-proofing is commonplace throughout the culture, typically sold with the idea of preserving health and wellness or saving lives. For instance, the promise (still waiting for convincing evidence) that self-driving cars can manage the road better in aggregate than human drivers hides the entirely foreseeable side effect of eroding attention and driving skill (already under assault from the ubiquitous smart phone no one can seem to put down). Plenty of anecdotes of gullible drivers who believed the marketing hype, forfeited control to autodrive, stopped paying attention, and ended up dead put the lie to that canard. In another example, a surprising upswing in homeschooling (not synonymous with unschooling) is also underway, resulting in keeping kids out of state-run public school. Motivations for opting out include poor academic quality, incompatible beliefs (typically related to religious faith or lack thereof), botched response to the pandemic, and the rise of school shootings. If one responded with fear at every imaginable provocation or threat, many entirely passive and unintentional, the bunker mentality that develops is somewhat understandable. Moreover, demands that others (parent, teachers, manufacturers, civil authorities, etc.) take responsibility for protecting individual citizens. If extended across all thinking, it doesn’t take long before a pathological complex develops.

Another protective trend is plugging one’s ears and refusing to hear discomfiting truth, which is already difficult to discern from the barrage of lies and gaslighting that pollute the infosphere. Some go further by killing silencing the messenger and restricting free speech as though that overreach somehow protects against uncomfortable ideas. Continuing from the previous post about social contagion, the viral metaphor for ideas and thinking, i.e., how the mind is “infected” by ideas from outside itself, is entirely on point. I learned about memes long before the “meme” meme (i.e., “going viral”) popularized and debased the term. The term originated in Richard Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene (1976), though I learned about memes from Daniel Dennett’s book Consciousness Explained (1992). As part of information theory, Dennett describes the meme as an information carrier similar to genes (phonetic similarity was purposeful). Whether as cognition or biology, the central characteristic is that of self-replicating (and metamorphosing or mutating) bits or bytes of info. The viral metaphor applies to how one conceptualizes the body’s and/or mind’s defensive response to inevitable contact with nastiness (bugs, viruses, ideas). Those who want to remain unexposed to either biological pathogens (uninfected) or dangerous ideas (ideologically pure) are effectively deciding to live within a bubble that indeed provides protection but then renders them more vulnerable if/when they exit the bubble. They effectively trap themselves inside. That’s because the immune system is dynamic and can’t harden itself against virulent invaders except through ongoing exposure. Obviously, there’s a continuum between exposure to everything and nothing, but by veering too close to the negative pole, the immune system is weakened, making individuals vulnerable to pathogens healthy people fend off easily.

The hygiene hypothesis suggests that children not allowed to play in the sand and dirt or otherwise interact messily with the environment (including pets) are prone to asthma, allergies, and autoimmune diseases later in life. Jonathan Haidt makes a similar argument with respect to behavior in his book The Coddling of the American Mind (2018) (co-authored with Greg Lukianoff), namely, that overprotecting children by erecting too many guides, guards, and fool-proofing ironically ends up hobbling children and making them unable to cope with the rigors of life. Demands for trigger warnings, safe spaces, deplatforming, and outright censorship are precisely that inability to cope. There is no easy antidote because, well, life is hard sometimes. However, unless one is happy to be trapped inside a faux protective bubble of one’s own making, then maybe consider taking off the training wheels and accepting some risk, fully recognizing that to learn, grow, and develop, stumbling and falling are part of the process. Sure, life will leave some marks, but isn’t that at least partly the point?

Social Contagion

Can’t remember how I first learned the term conversion hysteria (a/k/a conversion disorder a/k/a functional neurologic symptom disorder) but it was early in adulthood. The meaning is loose and subject to interpretation, typically focusing more on symptoms presented than triggers or causes. My lay understanding is that conversion hysteria occurs when either an individual or group works themselves into a lather over some subject and loses psychological mooring. I had my own experience with it when younger and full of raging hormones but later got myself under control. I also began to recognize that numerous historical events bore strong enough resemblance to categorize them as instances of group conversion hysteria. In recent years, clinical psychologist Mattias Desmet’s description of mass formation psychosis fits the same pattern, which is elaborated by him more formally. Some reports refer to Desmet’s description as “discredited.” I decline to referee the debate.

Two historical events where people lost their minds in response to severe disruption of social norms are the Salem witch trials and the Weimar/Nazi era in Germany. Two further, more recent episodes are Trump Derangement Syndrome in the U.S. and the Covid Cult worldwide, neither of which are over. The latter features governments and petty bureaucrats everywhere misapplying authoritarian force to establish biosecurity regimes over what turns out to have been a hypochondriac response to a bad flu virus (and yes, it was pretty bad) along with a maniacal power grab. What all episodes share is the perception — real or imagined — of some sort of virulent infection that triggers fear-laden desperation to purge the scourge at literally any cost, including destroying the host. The viral metaphor applies whether the agent is literally a virus alien to the physical body or merely an idea (meme) alien to the social body.

Let me acknowledge (as suggested here) Jordan Peterson’s comments in his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience that such events resemble social contagion that come and go in waves. However, those waves are not like the regular, established intervals of the tides or daylight/nighttime. Rather, they’re more like rogue waves or tsunamis that break across segments of a culture unpredictably. Peterson’s primary example was the very thing that brought him to prominence: Canadian legislation requiring that teachers use students’ preferred pronouns. While initially part of a broad social movement in support of transgender students in Canada and elsewhere, the issue has since become foundational to Woke ideology. Peterson said to Rogan that by pushing the matter into the mainstream (rather than it being at issue for a tiny fraction of students), Canadian legislators were quite literally opening the floodgates to a wave of confusion among youths already wrestling with identity. I can’t recall if Peterson said as much at the time (2017?) or is projecting onto the past.

Review: The Menu

What the hell was that? Seriously: WTF? Is it avant garde or just somebody’s fever dream of combination revenge/suicide porn? Can’t say what the motivation was behind it, but there was no real story to tell other than a step-by-step ratcheting up of colorful absurdity leading to a final conflagration. I mentioned in my review of The Glass Onion an emerging trend toward depicting the wealthy as pathetic figures rather than aspirational ones. “Soak the rich” is transforming into something far more ugly (wait for it: heads on spikes soon enough). That seems to be the whole point of this otherwise pointless exercise of a film. Spoilers ahead.

The film trots out its cast of tired character archetypes: the sybarite and his last-minute date (a philistine), the haughty and dismissive food critic and her snobby companion, the politician and his wife who tolerates his infidelities, the trio of gauche, misbehaved tech bros, and the washed up movie star/producer and his coattail-riding personal assistant. Collectively, they are yet another set of Shitheads (to reuse the indelicate term from The Glass Onion), each willing to shell out $1,200 to experience a specially curated menu by the master chef while inexplicably being held hostage on yet another private island. (Seems the private island in the post-Epstein era has entered the public mind as the forbidden delight of the jet set.) But it gets worse, obviously. The chef and his minions apparently have come to abjection and remorse over their enabling of multiple groups of Shitheads over the course of time (multiple menus for years?) and have at last concocted a menu culminating in murder/suicide of all present at the dinner. That’s the story worth telling?

Each of the dinner courses is preceded by a creepy monologue by the chef to provide a narrative behind each item of haute cuisine. As absurdity gains momentum, the monologues turn to moralizing and accusation with the dinner party eventually recognizing that the chef is a maniac and the private island is an inescapable trap. Each Shithead has his or her moment before the mirror and is forced to recognize his or her awfulness, stripping away façades to reveal wildly distorted characters. Like I said: revenge porn. The sole exception is the philistine, who weirdly outwits the chef by sending back her dinner as unsatisfactory, ordering instead a cheeseburger and fries, and taking them to go. The chef’s strict personal integrity demands he comply, apparently, which contrasts with his otherwise ironclad control over the kitchen and dinner party. However, I had already checked out of the film. Its internal logic no longer mattered, which is why I wasn’t bothered when the rest of the guests wanly accepted their fates with essentially no self-preservation instinct. Sure, whatever.

All-Purpose Guru

The backblog here at The Spiral Staircase has many examples of my crabbing about Jordan Peterson’s irritating remarks, behaviors, and rhetorical style. He has parlayed his fame (and infamy — no such thing as bad press) into blanket punditry, a sort of all-purpose guru for those prone to hero worship. His two legitimate areas of expertise are human psychology and interpretation of cultural stories and symbols, especially Christian ones. But when he holds forth on biology, Marxism, economics, politics, or the climate emergency, I’m far more skeptical about his claims and assertions delivered overconfidently as facts. Instead, I seek understanding from experts on those topics.

Peterson’s most recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, as usual, careened all over the topic map with Peterson in high didactic mode. He so overwhelmed Rogan with the familiar Gish gallop that Rogan was reduced to interjecting a few gestures of incredulity and exasperation (whoa, omigod, geez, wow, sheesh) while trying to absorb everything. The obvious next question after each brief pause prompting Peterson to launch into yet another soliloquy — a question I’ve learned to loathe — was “what can we do to fix this?” Seeking solutions is natural enough, but as I understand both historical and modern problems that exist at the societal level (to say nothing of indelible aspects of human nature), solutions are exceedingly difficult to identify and implement if indeed they exist at all. Yet there always seems to be a Man with a Plan (or product), typically an entrepreneur or politician. (I never possess confidence enough to propose grand solutions; problems that consume my thought are of such scale they appear intractable.) So of course Peterson, the all-purpose guru, steps up to the plate to swing at the ball, teasing Rogan (and podcast listeners) with transformational plans he can’t disclose fully just yet. While I continue to believe Peterson is earnest in his endeavors, I can’t help noticing he uses the techniques of a conman.

In fairness, however, the podcast did include one valuable insight, which was probably tangential but then quickly taken up and developed on the spot by Peterson. That, too, is a familiar Peterson approach: exploring ideas not really intended for discussion (squirrel!). However, that’s how conversations run, so my drawing attention to that diversion is not really a criticism. Indeed, because the insight (waves of social contagion) was worthwhile, it will form the basic of a later blog post.

Chatbots Gone Wild!

Although I’m not paying much attention to breathless reports about imminent strong AI, the Singularity, and computers already able to “model” human cognition and perform “impressive” feats of creativity (e.g., responding to prompts and creating “artworks” — scare quotes intended), recent news reports that chatbots are harassing, gaslighting, and threatening users just makes me laugh. I’ve never wandered over to that space, don’t know how to connect, and don’t plan to test drive for verification. Isn’t it obvious to users that they’re interacting with a computer? Chatbots are natural-language simulators within computers, right? Why take them seriously (other than perhaps their potential effects on children and those of diminished capacity)? I also find it unsurprising that, if a chatbot is designed to resemble error-prone human cognition/behavior, it would quickly become an asshole, go insane, or both. (Designers accidentally got that aspect right. D’oh!) That trajectory is a perfect embodiment of the race to the bottom of the brain stem (try searching that phrase) that keeps sane observers like me from indulging in caustic online interactions. Hell no, I won’t go.

The conventional demonstration that strong AI has arisen (e.g., Skynet from the Terminator movie franchise) is the Turing test, which is essentially the inability of humans to distinguish between human and computer interactions (not a machine-led extermination campaign) within limited interfaces such as text-based chat (e.g., the dreaded digital assistance that sometimes pops up on websites). Alan Turing came up with the test at the outset of computing era, so the field was arguably not yet mature enough to conceptualize a better test. I’ve always thought the test actually demonstrates the fallibility of human discernment, not the arrival of some fabled ghost in the machine. At present, chatbots may be fooling no one into believing that actual machine intelligence is present on the other side of the conversation, but it’s a fair expectation that further iterations (i.e., ChatBot 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc.) will improve. Readers can decide whether that improvement will be progress toward strong AI or merely better ability to fool human interlocutors.

Chatbots gone wild offer philosophical fodder for further inquiry into ebbing humanity as the drive toward trans- and post-human technology continue refining and redefining the dystopian future. What about chatbots make interacting with them hypnotic rather than frivolous — something wise thinkers immediately discard or even avoid? Why are some humans drawn to virtual experience rather than, say, staying rooted in human and animal interactions, our ancestral orientation? The marketplace already rejected (for now) the Google Glass and Facebook’s Meta resoundingly. I haven’t hit upon satisfactory answers to those questions, but my suspicion is that immersion in some vicarious fictions (e.g., novels, TV, and movies) fits well into narrative-styled cognition while other media trigger revulsion as one descends into the so-called Uncanny Valley — an unfamiliar term when I first blogged about it though it has been trending of late.

If readers want a really deep dive into this philosophical area — the dark implications of strong AI and an abiding human desire to embrace and enter false virtual reality — I recommend a lengthy 7-part Web series called “Mere Simulacrity” hosted by Sovereign Nations. The episodes I’ve seen feature James Lindsay and explore secret hermetic religions operating for millennia already alongside recognized religions. The secret cults share with tech companies two principal objectives: (1) simulation and/or falsification of reality and (2) desire to transform and/or reveal humans as gods (i.e., ability to create life). It’s pretty terrifying stuff, rather heady, and I can’t provide a reasonable summary. However, one takeaway is that by messing with both human nature and risking uncontrollable downstream effects, technologists are summoning the devil.

Pliable Privilege, pt. 03

I continue against my better judgment listening in fits and starts to Jordan Peterson on YouTube. No doubt he’s prolific, influential, interesting, infuriating, and by all accounts, earnest. I often come away frustrated, recognizing how I’ve been fed an extended line of BS in some sort of confidence game run by an overconfident intellectual bully. Because he’s the host inviting others onto his own platform, at least of late, everyone is very polite and disagreement — if it occurs — is quite tame, which allows Peterson to elide corrections smoothly. (Live conversation runs that way: piling on top of what was already said displaces and obscures ideas because memory is limited and the most recent utterance typically assumes primacy.) I avoid some topics on Peterson’s webcasts because they’re simply too far outside his expertise to be worthwhile, which he openly admits then stomps right in anyway. For example, Peterson has a series with the caption “Climategate” (putting the conclusion before the discussion, or is that biasing his audience?). Episode 329 (which I do not embed) is titled “The Models Are OK, the Predictions Are Wrong.” His guest is Dr. Judith Curry. I should have avoided this one, too. In the course of the 1.5-hour episode, Peterson repeatedly offers a characterization of some aspect of the climate emergency, to which Dr. Curry responds “I wouldn’t describe it quite that way.” Better characterizations may follow, but that’s neither the tone nor the takeaway.

One of Peterson’s contentions is that, if indeed humans inhabit and treat the surface of the planet problematically, the best way to address the problem is to raise out of poverty those billions of people still struggling to survive. Then they, too, will be ontologically secure and positioned to start caring more about the environment. Sure, just like all those secure, multimillionaire CEOs care while running corporations that extract resources and pollute. (Incidentally, someone in a recent DarkHorse Podcast Q&A asked if Peterson’s hypothetical solution makes any sense. Disappointingly, and perhaps because DarkHorse hosts are chummy with Peterson, they said it depends on how the solution is implemented, which I take to mean that the stars must align and everyone start rowing in unison. Yeah, right.) Peterson follows up his climate solution with the indignant question “Who are we to deny those struggling to raise themselves out of poverty their chance?” Which brings me round to the title of this multipart blog.

Survival is by no means an idle notion but poses a struggle everywhere, even in the affluent West. Just ask the burgeoning homeless population or those laboring frantically to keep mortgages or rent paid so they don’t also become homeless (unhoused is the new euphemism, fooling exactly no one). Even a casual look history reveals that competition among peoples and nations to survive and prosper has wildly uneven and shifting results. Some “succeed” earlier than others or not at all and winners may in time lose their preeminence. Never has there been an all-men-are-brothers approach to competition, though temporary alliances may form. Someone (us, not them) or something (profit, not unspoilt nature) is inevitably privileged. In this context, Peterson’s “Who are we to …?” question is a non sequitur, though it may pull on heartstrings because of quite recent embrace of the idea of equity. A glib answer might be that “we are we, not them,” so of course “we” get available spoils before anyone else. Doesn’t the leader of a pack of wolves eat first? Isn’t that dynamic repeated throughout nature? Aren’t humans embedded in nature just like all other species? Don’t we privilege human life above, say, food animals we farm for sustenance? (We eat them, they rarely eat us until we die and microbes — but nothing else — consume us. Or we give ourselves up to flames, denying even the microbes. We’re selfish that way.) It’s also why the rare individual who gives away all his or her money to charity and winds up penniless is regarded as mental. For nearly all of us, it’s always me (or my progeny) first. Another way to put this that Peterson should understand is that hierarchies exist in nature. Hierarchy and privilege are impossible to disentangle, and attempts to redistribute equitably borne out of ideology tend to devolve into tyranny.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I heard another webcast where the interviewer (Nate Hagens I believe) asked his guest what do you value (i.e., privilege) above all other things? (The word all invites an unbalanced reply.) The extended answer rather took me aback. The guest values life in all its profundity yet declined to privilege human life. In the context of the webcast, which was about the climate emergency and anticipated human die-off and/or extinction, that answer sorta made sense. Should humans survive, even if we eventually sacrifice everything else (our current operational strategy)? Or do we leave the Earth to hardier competitors such as cockroaches and rats? Most people (humans) would unhesitatingly choose us over them as, well, um, always. It’s a strange hypothetical to ponder. Taken to its extreme, if one doesn’t privilege one life form over another, then what’s the problem with criminals, scavengers, and parasites winning the battle for survival? Or more colorfully, why not give zombies and vampires their bite at the apple? They may be undead but their basic strategy for propagation is undoubtedly a winning one.

Reality Check (redux)

/rant on

The previous time I was prompted to blog under this title was regarding the deplorable state of public education in the U.S., handily summarized at Gin and Tacos (formerly on my blogroll). The blogger there is admirable in many respects, but he has turned his attention away from blogging toward podcasting and professional writing with the ambition of becoming a political pundit. (I have disclaimed any desire on my part to be a pundit. Gawd … kill me first.) I check in at Gin and Tacos rarely anymore, politics not really being my focus. However, going back to reread the linked blog post, his excoriation of U.S. public education holds up. Systemic rot has since graduated into institutions of higher learning. Their mission statements, crafted in fine, unvarying academese, may exhibit unchanged idealism but the open secret is that the academy has become a network of brainwashing centers for vulnerable young adults. See this blog post on that subject. What prompts this new reality check is the ongoing buildup of truly awful news, but especially James Howard Kunstler’s recent blog post “The Four Fuckeries” over at Clusterfuck Nation, published somewhat in advance of his annual year-end-summary-and-predictions post. Kunstler pulls no punches, delivering assessments of activities in the public interest that have gone so abysmally wrong it beggars the imagination. I won’t summarize; go read for yourself.

At some point, I realized when linking to my own past blog posts that perhaps too many include the word wrong in the title. By that, I don’t mean merely incorrect or bad or unfortunate but rather purpose-built for comprehensive damage that mere incompetence could not accomplish or explain. Some may believe the severity of damage is the simple product of lies compounding lies, coverups compounding coverups, and crimes compounding crimes. That may well be true in part. But there is far too much evidence of Manichean manipulation and heedless damn-the-torpedoes-full-steam-ahead garbage decision-making to waive off widespread institutional corruptions as mere conspiracy. Thus, Kunstler’s choice of the term fuckeries. Having already reviewed the unmitigated disaster of public education, let me instead turn to other examples.

Wrong Things Getting Done Anyway

The difference between right and wrong is obvious to almost everyone by the end of kindergarten. Temptations persist and everyone does things great and small known to be wrong when enticements and advantages outweigh punishments. C’mon, you know you do it. I do, too. Only at the conclusion of a law degree or the start of a political career (funny how those two often coincide) do things get particularly fuzzy. One might add military service to those exceptions except that servicemen are trained not to think, simply do (i.e., follow orders without question). Anyone with functioning ethics and morality also recognizes that in legitimate cases of things getting unavoidably fuzzy in a hypercomplex world, the dividing line often can’t be established clearly. Thus, venturing into the wide, gray, middle area is really a signal that one has probably already gone too far. And yet, demonstrating that human society has not really progressed ethically despite considerable gains in technical prowess, egregiously wrong things are getting done anyway.

The whopper of which nearly everyone is guilty (thus, guilty pleasure) is … the Whopper. C’mon, you know you eat it do it. I know I do. Of course, the irresistible and ubiquitous fast food burger is really only one example of a wide array of foodstuffs known to be unhealthy, cause obesity, and pose long-term health problems. Doesn’t help that, just like Big Tobacco, the food industry knowingly refines their products (processed foods, anyway) to be hyperstimuli impossible to ignore or resist unless one is iron willed or develops an eating disorder. Another hyperstimulus most can’t escape is the smartphone (or a host of other electronic gadgets). C’mon, you know you crave the digital pacifier. I don’t, having managed to avoid that particular trap. For me, electronics are always only tools. However, railing against them with respect to how they distort cognition (as I have) convinces exactly no one, so that argument goes on the deferral pile.

Another giant example not in terms of participation but in terms of effect is the capitalist urge to gather to oneself as much filthy lucre as possible only to sit heartlessly on top of that nasty dragon’s hoard while others suffer in plain sight all around. C’mon, you know you would do it if you could. I know I would — at least up to a point. Periods of gross inequality come and go over the course of history. I won’t make direct comparisons between today and any one of several prior Gilded Ages in the U.S., but it’s no secret that the existence today of several hundy billionaires and an increasing number of mere multibillionaires represents a gross misallocation of financial resources: funneling the productivity of the masses (and fiat dollars whiffed into existence with keystrokes) into the hands of a few. Fake philanthropy to launder reputations fail to convince me that such folks are anything other than miserly Scrooges fixated on maintaining and growing their absurd wealth, influence, and bogus social status at the cost of their very souls. Seriously, who besides sycophants and climbers would want to even be in the same room as one of those people (names withheld)? Maybe better not to answer that question.